CoR cuddles up to its public

We are always being told that the Union should get as close to its citizens as possible. Now the Committee of the Regions has taken the notion just about as far as it can go.

European Voice

10/16/96, 5:00 PM CET

Updated 4/12/14, 1:37 AM CET

Committee President Pasqual Maragall proudly proclaimed the other day that no other EU institution was so in touch with the people. “After all, we walk the streets every day,” he told delegates at a three-day Parliament conference on regional policy.

That is how it came through the headphones in English anyway, to the surprise of anglophone listeners to Maragall’s speech. Suddenly the president’s calls for “proximity politics” took on a whole new meaning.